Final Road Swing Begins Thursday for Men’s Basketball at Oregon State

SALT LAKE CITY – The Utah men’s basketball team hits the road for its final two games of the regular-season this weekend starting with Oregon State this Thursday, March 7, inside Gill Coliseum on ESPNU. Troy Clardy will have the call between the Runnin’ Utes and Beavers alongside Corey Williams as Utah remains in the fight for a top-four seed in the Pac-12 Tournament.
 
TOURNAMENT SEEDING
With two games remaining in the regular-season, Utah’s still has an opportunity to earn a “bye” as the No. 4-seed should it win out this upcoming weekend and can go as low as the No. 7 seed based on results from around the league.
 
SWEEP THE LEG
Utah picked up its sixth home sweep of the Bay Area schools this past weekend and its first since 2019-20 against Stanford and Cal. In total, Utah swept three of the four home swings this season in Pac-12 play. The Utes opened up conference play with their second-straight sweep of the Washington school in as many years before sweeping the Oregon schools for the first time since 2012-13 – which was just the second sweep ever in the Pac-12 Era.
 
The Utes’ lone losses at home in 2023-24 came against the Arizona schools in early February before finishing the home slate with a pair of victories over the Bay Area schools.
 
DEEP IN THE WOODS OF OREGON
The road trip to the State of Oregon has been one of the toughest for Utah since joining the Pac-12 outside of the Arizona swing. Utah has only swept Oregon and Oregon State once (2016-17) on the road and have split the trip twice (2014-15, 2022-23) with both of those wins coming against OSU. Meanwhile, the Utes have been swept by both the Ducks and Beavers seven times (2011-13, 2015-17, 2019-22). Should the Utes sweep the weekend, it would be the first time ever that’s it has swept the Oregon schools both home and away in a season.
 
SEASON FINALE RECORDS
Season Finale All-Time: 71-44 | Away: 21-28
In Pac-12 Era: 7-5 | Away: 0-4
 
KUZMA HITS 8K
Former Runnin’ Ute Kyle Kuzma reached 8,000 career points in the NBA this past Monday night coincidentally against the Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City. With that, Kuzma became just the fourth player from the 2017 draft class to accomplish this feat joining Donovan Mitchell, Jayson Tatum and De’Aaron Fox.

LAST TIME OUT

Despite it being just a 10-point game at the half (42-32) in favor of…